after seeing all the cute/awesome/great/beautiful/creative entries from everyone (and encouragement from other craftsters), i decided to enter too! my first challenge (although its just a very simple creation, as compared to other creative posts) =D

some of u may have already seen my initial thread on the polymer clay board.. but those pics were without a scale, so i retook some for this challenge.

wanted to do a lotus flower cos its beautiful and symbolizes life and purity. i grayscaled it to emphasize the actual flower rather than the colours.from searching for an appropriate picture to completion took me about 2 hrs.

it was easy and fun to do, requiring just a little patience =Di really love how it turned out, and now im really tempted to make a mosaic out of it!

pineapple-shaped. the pineapple is an auspicious item in the chinese culture and is believed to bring wealth.

closer view.

i made this one last new year. its the same as the first pic except for the design on the ang paos.

close-up.

sorry for the blurry pics. they are taken using my mobile phone as my digicam is not with me.

now, for those who are not familiar with chinese traditions and are wondering what ang paos are, they stand for red packets in chinese dialect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_packets the "lanterns" are purely for decorative purposes only, and cannot be lit.

heres a pic of what they originally looked like:

the first lantern is made for my cousin, who wanted one since she saw the one i made last year. the pineapple one was tougher to make, and i spent a few hours figuring out how to get the oval shape. it took me around 4 attempts (and wasting tons of ang paos) before finally getting it.